1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an information processing apparatus and a method and a program for mediating applications.
2. Description of the Related Art
With the widespread use of IC cards, reader/writers for reading and writing information from and to IC cards have been installed in a variety of places. When IC cards were first introduced, they were mainly used in apparatuses for business applications. In recent years, the use of low-cost reader/writers in consumer electronics devices (hereinafter referred to as “CE devices”) has become widespread. Accordingly, the number of applications using IC cards has been rapidly increasing.
In particular, the number of CE devices, such as personal computers (PCs) and mobile phones, having the reader/writer function has been rapidly increasing. Therefore, a different reader/writer may be connected to such CE devices having the reader/writer function. This type of CE device can prestore a plurality of applications for using an IC card and a user can freely install a new application in the CE device. Consequently, the chances have greatly increased that a plurality of applications for IC cards coexist in the same CE device.